


Dearest Blood

by Carolyn_Spencer



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:34:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26915218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carolyn_Spencer/pseuds/Carolyn_Spencer
Summary: Spock is alive and well again, but Kirk wants a divorce.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock
Comments: 6
Kudos: 102





	Dearest Blood

The box sat squarely in the middle of my uncluttered desk. I recognized it immediately when I entered my quarters. Nothing else it could be. Not with that distinctive gold and blue wrapping. 

On the top was my name and serial number. And rank…with _Admiral_ neatly crossed off and replaced by _Captain._ No indication on the outer wrapping of who sent it, but I knew as soon as I saw the package. Must have cost a small fortune to have it beamed in successive stages from Argelius to Earth and then up to the ship.

I tore off the paper, pressed the seal-tab and the package opened. Taking out one of the expertly wrapped boxes, I pried up the lid and set the chess piece on my desk. It was the green king; the pale verdigris color of Argelian telpan marble with the darker veins characteristic of the stone running sparsely through it. Delicately formed, a long column thicker at the head and base than in the middle. _His_ king. It even had two ridges around the crown. I’d teased him unmercifully about that.

Suddenly exhausted, I sank into the desk chair and stared at it. The piece begged to be touched, and after a time I picked it up. It felt cool until the warmth from my hand penetrated. It would, I knew, retain its heat for hours. 

If I dug deeper into the box, I’d find the companion pieces made from the pale rose of the petrified ssalatya tree, and below that would be the inlaid board and the hardware to set it up. I didn't have the energy to go to the trouble. Each piece would be subtly different from every other one. Hand-carved and unique. Exquisite. Just like the first set.

I sat and looked at the piece in my hand, but it was the other set I saw.

_The familiar colors of the shop attracted our attention from halfway down the block. The blue and gold awning was fancifully decorated with swirls and the name of the shop in the curving Argelian script. Below it was the translation into Standard—Treasures. This was just a short layover, a few hours to spend in Pleasure city, Argelius’s capital, while Scotty and Bones oversaw the loading of some medical supplies bound for Certanin Prime._

_We hadn’t meant to buy anything. Not until we saw the set on its own separate display table tucked into a corner of the shop._

_“We can’t, Spock,” I said as I picked up the green king. It fit into my palm like it was made for me to hold. Like Spock fit into my life. Like my body fit into his. “It’ll take every credit we put away for the two weeks on Benecia.”_

_“Indeed,” was his laconic reply, and a good deal more.” He stroked the matching rose knight and raised one brow._

_The set was indestructible, they said. It would last forever, they said. Spock and I traded glances while inside the bond between us sang its sweet song. Forever. Like us._

Naturally we bought the set on the spot. Hell, it was the only five-year anniversary we'd ever have.

It was supposed to be a simple training cruise with lots of spare time to play chess. I closed my eyes and remembered the placement of the pieces in our last game. We were still jockeying for position, neither of us with a clear advantage. It was a game we would never finish. We left the chess set on my table, in my quarters, on my ship…on my lovely lady that I killed with my own hand. And she _was_ mine, no matter who sat in her center seat. I'd bought her with the blood of so many entrusted to my care. I'd bought her with _Spock's_ blood. 

I found I had closed my eyes. When I opened them I looked down to discover I was holding the green king so hard my hand was aching. 

Nothing lasts forever. I should have known that. It is, after all, the one indisputable law of the cosmos. Suns and starships, chess sets and people. They’re born. They live. They die. Order begets chaos. Amen. Nothing lasts forever. Not even love. Especially not love. 

It seemed our definition of forever lasted eight years. 

Stupid to sit here like this, hand shaking. I carefully returned the king to the desktop. Maybe McCoy was right to relieve me of duty. 

_"Go mourn,” he’d said._

_“I’ve done that. On Vulcan. Three months to mourn my son, my ship, my career._

_“I know you have. No, it’s Spock you have to grieve for.”_

_“Spock? In case you hadn’t noticed, Bones, Spock’s sitting up on the bridge. Alive and well. Maybe you’re the one who needs some time off.”_

_“What was it, Jim? Eight years you and Spock were bonded? The day he died the walls went up. Since then you’ve performed magnificently. You got him back. You’ve saved Earth, not to mention my sanity, which I tend to value highly, by the way. You’ve been vindicated at the hearing. But in all that time you’ve never let the walls down. Not once. ‘I feel young.’ Targ dung, if I ever heard it. It’s time. It’s past time. Go talk to him.”_

_“I talk to him all the time._

_“No, you don’t. Not really. Not about the important things. We’ve noticed.”_

_“We?”_

_“Spock and I.” He touched his forehead. “We’ve noticed.”_

_“Bones….”_

_“No, no, I’m all right. Really.” He shook his head. “Has Spock moved back into your quarters?”_

_“You know he wasn’t himself when we left for Earth. I thought he needed some time alone, and then we got caught up with George and Gracie and between the debriefing and the hearing....”_

_There was more he wanted to say, but for once he stopped himself. “This ship is on a routine shakedown cruise, and you and Spock have some shaking down of your own to do. As of right now, Captain, you’re both relieved of duty for the next two days. I’ll let Spock know.”_

It was the last thing—the very last thing, in the universe I could deal with right now.

I rose from the desk and walked to the port opening. The transparent aluminum felt cold to the touch. Not as cold as the space that passed by at a sedate warp one. Not as cold as your lover’s body felt when you’ve removed him from the radiation chamber where he’s died. No, not as cold as that, but cold just the same. With my face reflected back from the surface, it looked as if I were outside the ship. Outside in the cold. Looking in.

I removed my hand from the transglass and traced the course of the shiver as it traveled up my spine. “Computer, raise heat two levels.”

The nearly inaudible whoosh of the parting doors drew my attention, but I didn’t move. Over my right shoulder the reflection of Spock’s face joined my own. _So, you remembered the entrance code. What else have you remembered?_

He moved a few steps further into the room until the doors closed. Both hands were behind his back and even though I couldn’t see them, I knew the left one would be grasping the right in the gesture that he used, careful as always not to inadvertently touch. The gesture he used in public. Not in private. Not in our own quarters between the two of us. Not since we had first become lovers.

I turned.

“I see you have received the chess set,” he said.

“Yes. It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

“I am gratified that it arrived before we left Earth orbit.”

“It gave me a bit of a jolt. I didn’t know you remembered.”

“I had not remembered its significance when I ordered it from Vulcan. Just that I associated it with you. When Sarek explained all you had done for me, all the sacrifices you made for me, I remembered. After your name, it was the first memory to return.”

“And now?”

“Now I remember why after your name it was the first memory to return.”

"What else do you remember?"

He placed a small case down at the floor by his feet, then stood and resumed that careful stance. “Everything,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“An overnight case. I will transfer the rest of my things in the morning.”

My palms started to sweat. “Let’s make it another time. I’m tired, and I really should get some rest.”

“Tonight we will rest in our own bed. Together.”

I waved up the lights to their next setting and turned back to the porthole. It must have been a trick of the light, or maybe I had shifted position, but only Spock’s face was reflected there now. It was as if that barrier down in the reactor room separated us again. Before I could even think about it I reached out to touch his image. Only the smooth cold transglass met my fingers.

"No," I said.

“Jim, it is time we shared quarters again.”

“Look, I just can’t go into all this with you right now. Tomorrow or the next day—”

“I have noted your increasing emotional distance since the whale mission ended, Jim. McCoy has removed both our names from the duty roster for the next forty-seven point three hours. I believe we need to discuss what is troubling you, and he has provided us with an excellent opportunity.”

“ _My_ emotional distance? Al1 right then.” I turned. This I would say to his face. “I want a divorce.”

“That is impossible.”

“An unbonding then. A disbonding. Whatever you want to call it.”

“You knew when we bonded that it was forever. I explained it quite carefully to you.”

No change in inflection. No change in expression. It was like we were back at the beginning, and God knows I couldn’t go through the whole thing all over again. I just couldn’t.

“Forever.” The tone was just right. Flat. Unemotional. I was pleased with that. “Yes. We even chose the death bond, didn’t we?”

“Jim.”

“Didn’t we?”

“Jim, I could not let you die,” he said, and though the expression on his face didn’t change, his eyes did, but I couldn't read them any more. Maybe I never could.

“It wasn’t your choice to make.” I kept my gaze locked to his, until he finally blinked and looked away. “You shielded from me on the bridge. I didn’t even know you had gone. I didn’t know what you were going to do. But you knew. Even then you knew, didn’t you?” I waited for some sort of response and saw there wasn’t going to be one. “Answer me, Spock.”

“Yes, I knew. I also knew you would have tried to stop me had you known.”

“Damn straight I would have tried.” _Watch it. That came out a little desperate._ I brought it down a notch. “Damn straight,” I said more softly.

He took a step toward me, but something in my face must have stopped him. “If I had not gone we would not be standing here to discuss it today. Can you not see that I would have died either way? The explosion of the Genesis Device or the reactor room. Many deaths or only one more. The choice was mine. Jim,” he shook his head slowly, “the ship was filled with old friends and children.” 

“You didn’t give me the time to…. Maybe if I had…. I would have thought of _something!_ ”

He shook his head slowly. “There was nothing you could have done.”

“I can’t accept that. I won’t accept that!”

The glossy black head tilted slightly to the side. Until that moment I hadn’t realized I’d missed that gesture so, and now the sight brought a visceral pain to my chest.

“I have never understood your limitless capacity for believing you must be in control of every situation, nor your self-recriminations when you discover you are not,” he said. 

“I was the captain. It was my _job_ to come up with the answer.”

“No, that is incorrect.” He drew himself to his full height, and the warm brown eyes I had always loved turned dark and cold. “You were in command, but _I_ was the captain of the _Enterprise_. It was _my_ job to come up with the answer…and I did.”

“Did you know I felt your pain? At least some of it.” 

Finally I saw the response I was looking for. His face paled, the dark eyes closed and he swallowed once before opening them again. “I regret that you—”

“Oh, yes. When you couldn’t shield any longer and still do what you had to do to get the mains back on line it seeped through to me. And that’s when you did it, wasn’t it? That’s when you broke the bond. You did break it, didn’t you? You wanted to break it and you did.”

“Jim…please—”

"I think I deserve an answer, Spock. You wanted to break it. In fact, you did your _damnedest_ to break it. It wasn't the…the radiation that weakened it.” It most definitely was not a question.

“No.”

I didn’t think so.” I walked back to the porthole and spoke the words soft and calm and low. “A miracle happened, Spock, and I didn’t lose you, but if it hadn’t…you would have left me behind. Damn you for that.” Space had never looked so cold or so empty before.

“I—”

“But you couldn’t break the bond all at once. I could feel it fraying in my mind as I ran to Engineering. Strand by strand. And I knew, _I knew_ , no matter how fast I ran, I wasn’t going to get there in time to stop it from happening.”

“I do not understand why I was able to break the bond. It should not have been possible. Perhaps my Human blood—”

“Your Human blood what? Your Human blood prevented you from forming a strong enough bond between us to take me with you? You’re telling me that for eight years we shared a bond that was less than other Vulcan couples shared? That it was inadequate and dysfunctional and never satisfied you, but that was all right because the weak Human you were bonded to wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference?”

His head jerked back as if I had struck him, and he finally unclasped his hands. “No! You must know how…content…I was within our bond.”

“I thought I did. Maybe I never really knew you at all. Maybe it really doesn’t matter any more.” Looking down I noticed my hands were clenched into fists and unclenched them. “I fought you, you know. If I’d been stronger— If I’d been Vulcan—”

“It would have made no difference.”

“All the time I was running, I fought and clawed and clutched at my end of the bond as hard as I could. With everything I had. With everything I was. But it didn’t…. I couldn’t…. Like water through my hands, it slipped away strand by strand.”

“I know. I felt it.” 

“Strand by strand. Until there was nothing left.”

“Jim….”

But maybe Vulcans have the right idea after all. Humans _do_ spend a great deal of time deluding themselves.” One black eyebrow rose up his forehead. “Take me for instance. After the…funeral…I sat alone in our quarters…and I waited. And waited. You see by that time I had convinced myself that I had been wrong about feeling the bond leave. Maybe that was natural for Vulcans when they.... Hell, what did I know about it really? McCoy kept asking me how I was feeling. I think he expected me to drop down dead right at his feet. ‘I feel young,’ I told him. I did. Because the one bedrock certainty in my life was that you wouldn’t desert me. Somehow you’d come for me, or I’d be drawn to you. And we’d be together like at the beginning, like it was eight years ago...when we were young. Do you remember how it was between us that first time?”

He took two steps toward me before I raised my hand and stopped him. I waited for his answer and saw there wouldn’t be one.

“So I waited. But you never came. I couldn’t understand it. The ship was safe. I was free to go. Then I thought that maybe I had some unfinished business to take care of before I could...join you. I made my peace with David. Carol, too. We picked up the survivors on Ceti Alpha 5 and turned for Earth. I kept hoping right until we pulled into Spacedock. That was the day that Bones finally relaxed, and I knew then it wasn’t going to happen.” I found I was looking at the floor. It was hard to force my eyes up to meet his, but I did. I had to. “I guess I really don’t have to ask you for a divorce or to remove, the bond, do I? It’s gone.” I shook my head. “As if it had never been.”

“I regret that you.... I beg f—” 

The words were spoken so gently. I shut him off with an abrupt movement of my hand. Anger I could take. From both of us. Gentleness would destroy me.

“But of course every cloud has a silver lining,” I said. “The good news is that you finally proved what you've been trying to prove your whole damn life. That you’re as good as—no better than—a full-blood. You succeeded in breaking a death bond where another Vulcan would have failed.” I stepped to where I could feel his heat between us. Congratulations,” I said.

He turned for the door. “Perhaps you were correct in your original assessment. Another time might be better to discuss this. I will—”

“No you won’t, Mister.” I put my hands on him and yanked him around. It was the first time we had touched since the Bounty had landed in San Francisco Bay weeks ago. “Not this time. You ran from me to Gol. You ran from me to the reactor room. You’re damn well not running away from me again. Not until I tell you you can go.”

He winched. This close I knew he was feeling it all...the anger—no matter how I had tried to mute it, the pain—no matter how I had tried to disguise it. I wasn’t even trying to hold it back anymore, and he never could barrier very well against me. Not even at the beginning.

Then I had to get away from him. From his scent. From the wiry strength under my fingers. From the sight of the one small patch of skin behind his ear that drove him crazy when I licked it. Just my hands on the proper maroon arms of his uniform was enough to send the blood pulsing to my groin, and my...oh, God, my...my cock was becoming erect, and all I wanted to do was shove it up inside him and take back what belonged to me. 

_I saw how it would be. How I would strip the jacket from his body and throw it aside. How he would stand there and let me do it. How I would pull up his white regulation top so fast, so hard that he couldn’t lift his arms in time and it would rip and leave green friction marks like veins on the perfect telpan marble of his skin. How the pants would come next, and how when he was naked I would hook my foot behind his ankle and take him down. I would look at his body and there wouldn’t be any clothes between us and only my hard cock would be between us. And I would use my knee to pry his legs apart and I would put my prick to his hole and I would…look up for the first time to watch his eyes as I shoved it in, as I reminded him that his life and his death belonged to me...that he belonged to me...and I would find his eyes clenched shut and his lower lip would be caught between his teeth and his head would be turned to the side in despair._

In despair. As his head was turned to the side now. How long had it been? Seconds? A minute? My hands were still clutching his arms. When he turned back to face me, the skin between his eyes looked hard and tight, and his mouth had fallen open that small bit as it did when he was very distressed. The dark eyes told me the distress wasn’t for himself but for me, and I knew he had seen it all through the contact between us. I saw that until that moment he had never known I was capable of that kind of violence. But then neither had I. 

I shoved him away. Hard. He let me. I backed up until my legs hit the desk. Until I stumbled and almost fell. _Was I that angry with him that I could do that? Was he that repentant that he would let me?_

“I didn’t. I wouldn’t…do that to you, to us. We’ve never played those dominance games. My, God…that would be…r—” I slowly shook my head from side to side. “I didn’t do it!”

“No, Jim, you did not.” His eyes were large and black and he spoke in the soothing tones one would use to calm a child or a maniac with a weapon. Even while my heart hammered in my chest and my knees shook, my own weapon was still tight and achingly hard against my belly.

“I wanted to. For that one moment, God forgive me, I wanted to.” The words came out in a whisper.

“But you did not. Thoughts are not actions, Jim. Wants are not deeds.”

“I’m sorry.”

A swallow at the long throat, and in the uncertain flicker of dark eyes I saw the ghost of pon farrs past and future rise once again. “I know,” he said. And of course he did. Sexual violence and sorrow were two things he knew very well.

He stayed where he was while I edged around the desk. While I made it a barrier between my weapon and his oh, so vulnerable body. Yes, he had hurt me. And now I had hurt him. I’ve always known I could hurt him. Oh, not physically. But then those are never the worst wounds to bear. Physical wounds heal…or kill, but the soul bleeds forever. And now both our souls were bleeding.

“We’d both be better off without each other.”

“Never.”

The silence grew as we each assessed the damage. _How could I make him understand?_ I picked up the green king. “Did I ever tell you how I learned to play chess?

Now puzzlement at the non-sequitur was there in the dark eyes. “No, Jim.”

“My grandfather taught me. He was a tough old bird, my grandfather. You would have liked him, Spock. You two would have had a great deal in common. He didn’t believe in expressing emotion right out where anyone could see it either. 

“I had my lessons in command over a chessboard. The old-fashioned two-dimensional kind was his favorite. It was there at his knee that I first knew what I wanted to do with my life.

“You see, the way he put it was that chess was a war. Two opposing armies stand facing each other on a field of battle. Two commanders lead them, and the one who proves himself the most courageous, the most cunning, will lead his troops to victory. He alone makes the decisions—which of his men will live and which will die, which are pawns to be…sacrificed so that others might prevail.” Carefully I placed the king back on the desk. “And win or lose, the commander always walks away unscathed, doesn’t he? He always survives to fight another day.”

Spock walked to the desk and placed his hands upon it. Leaning over for emphasis, the piercing dark eyes met and held mine. “I am no man’s pawn, Jim.”

“Of course you are, Spock. Of course you are,” I whispered. Before I knew what was happening, before I could stop it, my hands reached out for the box of chess pieces, lifted it high above my head and hurled it against the bulkhead wall. For one second the sound of a unique and beautiful thing being destroyed satisfied something deep inside.

I looked down at my hands in awe. “I can’t believe I just did that.”

“Jim, my death was not your fault.” Very firmly said.

“It was my decision, Spock. I marooned Khan and his people on that desolate world. I just didn’t know it was going to turn into a death trap. If I had gone back to check just once. Just once in fifteen years—”

“We both made our reports to Starfleet Command at that time, Jim. It was not your personal responsibility to follow up on it.”

“All that hate…. Building and building for fifteen years…. “I looked at his dear face, and now I saw it all clearly for the first time. “Khan said he had hurt me and he wanted to go on hurting me. And now Khan is dead. He can’t hurt us anymore, but then he doesn’t have to, does he? We’re doing it to each other. Look at us. Oh, God…. Spock. You thought you knew what was best for me. It was your arrogance that made you leave me behind. I never gave Khan a second thought. It was my own arrogance that cost me what I valued most.”

And then he was there beside me, so close I could feel his heat between us, but he didn’t quite dare touch me. 

“I know. You sacrificed so much for me. Your son. Your ship. Your career.”

_How was it possible he still didn’t understand?_ I shook my head slowly and placed one hand against his chest where his heart would be if he were Human.

“Dearest blood.”

“Jim, I do not understand.”

“Dearest blood. Our dearest blood.”

“Jim, you are not making any sense." He did touch me then, finally. Grasp my arms and gave me one small shake. “Stop this. You will stop this. I do not understand, and you are beginning to frighten me.”

“One of your cadets. Ensign Carter. He stopped me on the bridge just before we pulled into Spacedock. He wanted to know if we were going to be greeted with a celebration when we returned home. Kid never knew how close he came to having his teeth knocked down his throat, but then I thought of you and stopped myself. You know what I told him? ‘God knows there should be,’ I said. ‘This time we’ve paid for the party with our dearest blood.’ Our dearest blood, Spock. But to that kid you weren’t ‘our dearest blood.’ That kid still wet behind the ears had never seen you when your eyes first opened in the morning with your hair all straggled and mussed. Hadn’t ever heard the sounds you made when I loved you in the night. He could still walk and talk and eat and sleep and make love to his girlfriend, and to him you weren’t ‘our’ dearest blood.”

Suddenly my legs went out from under me, and I started to fold. Spock followed me down still gripping my arms, and we ended up in an untidy heap on the floor.

“You were mine.” A strangled whisper in some stranger’s voice. “My dearest blood.”

His eyes closed briefly. He took one deep breath and opened them again to stare fiercely into mine. “I beg forgiveness, Jim. I am sorry I was the cause of so much pain for you.”

“Pain, Spock? The radiation burns on your face. The searing of your beautiful hands. Your eyes...your blinded eyes.... That’s pain. After the decontamination when I carried you from the chamber, your skin....” I looked down at my hands, and saw they were again smeared with green. “Your skin came off in my hands. The blood—”

This time he shook me harder. “Jim,” he said, “look at me. I am here beside you. I am alive, Jim. We are both alive.”

It was an effort to raise my head. Such concern on his face. “I watched you d—”

“Say it.”

“No!” I couldn’t. I’d written it in innumerable reports. I’d described it at the hearing. I’d lived it night after night in dreams that brought me awake sweat-drenched and screaming. I’d laid my mind open, laid it bare and bleeding for Sarek to see, and I could not do it one more time. Something in me would tear apart if I had to face it again.

“I think you must, Jim.” 

“I can’t.”

“Then I will. You watched me die.”

“Let me go, Spock.”

“You watched me die. You were the one left behind. And I see now that is far worse.”

“People don’t return from the dead.”

“I did. You came back for me, Jim. You saved me.”

I’ve always been a man who lives in the present, much preferring reality to any form of paradise no matter how desired it might be, but I clenched my eyes shut and watched in horror as the incredibly insane thought formed. _What if he weren’t there when I opened them again? What if it all was some sort of delusion? What if wanting had finally become believing?_

He grasped me harder, and I tried to hold on to the solidity of those hands on my arms.

“I can prove I am here with you, Jim. You asked if I remember how it was between us. Yes, I remember. Every word. Every touch. Shall I tell you how it was that first time?”

“No.”

“Open your eyes. Look at me, T’hy’1a.”

I dared believe the reality of his voice and obeyed. He was still there. 

“It was after the meld with V’ger. After I came back from Gol. Nothing in my life was of any consequence if I were not at your side. It took me far too long to realize that, Jim.

“You came to me that night. Came to my quarters. Do you remember?”

“I—”

“I was meditating...trying once again, as I had since first I knew you, to put the feelings you evoked in me.... To drive them away. To bury them so deeply you would never know. I could not bear to be near you, but neither could I bear to be apart from you.

“You came to where I was kneeling...and held out your hand.”

With that he rose and extended one fine-boned hand in my direction.

“You waited, patient as you always were with me. Finally I put my hand in yours.”

The silence stretched between us. I put my hand in his. It felt warm. Solid and alive. It felt real.

“You brought me to my feet.” He tugged on my hand until I stood. 

“‘I thought I had lost you,’ you said.”

My throat felt dry.

“Do you wish to say something to me, Jim?”

“Spock...I—”

“Say it, Jim.”

“This is rid—” I started to turn away.

“Say it.”

“I thought I had...lost you.”

“You placed your hands on my face.” He suited the action to the words. “And you tilted my head, and you kissed me.” His lips on mine. So sweet. Gentle and warm. Warm enough to thaw the cold that lived inside. I could feel it slip away. I tried to turn. From his heat. From the gentleness that would destroy me. He wouldn’t let me.

“Say what you said then, Jim. Let me hear it once again.”

“No. Spock—”

“Say it, Jim.” One small shake to my arms. “Say it." 

_I love you._ I wanted it to be perfunctory. I _needed_ it to be perfunctory. What came out of my mouth was anything but: “Spock, I…I love you. Oh, God. I love you.”

“And I love you, T’hy’la. More than my life. More than my katra. With everything I have. With everything I am.

“That first time you moved so slowly when you opened my meditation robe.” He opened the clasp of my uniform jacket undid the belt. I knew you would stop if I asked.” Leisurely, with exquisite care, he slid the jacket from my shoulders, folded it and laid it on the desk. “You were so gentle when you bared my shoulders.” The white uniform top came off next. “You walked behind me.” When he did, his heat against my bare back was the only contact between us until hot lips seared the nape of my neck. Instantly I was as hard as before. Harder. It had been _so long._

“Let me make love to you, T’hy’la.”

Numbly I arched back against that solid heat and nodded.

He took my hand and led me to the bed. The bed I had yet to sleep in. The bed I had avoided sleeping in, using the press of work as an excuse. A wave of his hand at the controls dimmed the lights.

He knelt and removed my boots and pants. Carefully, reverently, slipped my briefs away from my straining cock and down and off while I looked down at the dark bent head. One blow would have sent him sprawling. One thrust would have put my cock to his mouth. Finally I did neither and focused only on staying on my feet.

When he was finished, he leaned back on his heels and looked up at me for one long interminable moment. Raked me with his hot glance while my cock twitched and rose impossibly higher at his inspection. Raised his eyes to my face. Swallowed once. “When you looked at my naked body, you said I was beautiful. No one had ever found me beautiful before. Alien, yes. Exotic. Always different. Never beautiful. Only in your eyes have I ever been beautiful.” His glance caressed me from my face down to my feet and back up again, touching every part of me, loving every part of me, and his voice was hoarse and thick with feeling when he whispered, “You are so beautiful, T’hy’la.”

I had to clear my throat before I could answer. “You told me to take off my clothing. You told me you wanted to see all of me.”

Quickly he rose and stripped off his clothes, shedding them as if they were a second skin he had outgrown and no longer needed. Underneath was the new growth he offered me as a gift—raw and precious and painfully, unbearably beautiful.

When our bodies came together, the current between us was more pain than pleasure. Live-wire sharp. Leaping from chest to chest, belly to belly, cock to cock and back again. Searing everywhere we touched. Singeing the air between us so it hurt to breathe. What I saw revealed on his face, I knew was reflected on my own. When I moaned, it escaped from his throat.

And then we were on the bed, Spock on his hands and knees above me, our heat releasing his distinctive scent of cinnamon, like spiced tea to warm me on a cold winter’s morning.

“You kissed me,” he said “Here.” Heated lips grazed my neck. “Here.” They skimmed my collarbone. “And here.” They came to rest on my chest where a pointed tongue flicked the nub. I bucked beneath him and fought to keep from clutching the black silken strands of his hair, not sure even now that I could touch him with tenderness. “I had never known such pleasure,” he said. “Never known I could feel the things you made me feel that night.”

His tongue gave equal attention to my other nipple.

“Spock….”

His mouth took mine again, and the words I meant to speak slipped away forgotten and unsaid. I touched him then, any place I could. Because I had to. The silken hair. The tip of one elegantly sloped ear. His face. His shoulder. The place at his neck where I could feel the impossibly rapid pulse of his life’s blood coursing through his veins.

He laid a path of kisses down my belly, paused to lick at my navel, held my squirming body down while he nuzzled the hair at my groin and took my cock in his mouth. While he slid inch by inch down to the root. While the muscles at the back of his throat milked me. While the universe whited out.

“Stop me! Spock!”

A hand at the base of my cock eased the need until I could think again.

He pulled back. We both were breathing heavily.

“That first time,” I panted, “you didn’t want to come that way.”

“No. I wanted…I needed to feel your body hot and alive inside mine.”

“We didn’t have any lubrication then either.” I expected him to get up. To check the bedside drawer. To at least go into the head for some lotion. He sat back on his heels, motionless, except for his heaving chest and the quivers that made his cock jump in time with his breathing.

I expected him to speak. He didn’t. Then I knew. He was waiting for me to say what he had said that first time I loved him.

I needed to feel his body hot and alive inside mine. Needed to make his life more real than his death, so I said the words he was waiting to hear. “‘Let me wet you with my mouth. That is all the lubrication we will need.’”

He smiled.

I can remember each and every smile he has given me over our years together. They are so rare. So elusive. Each requires courage and strength. Each is a gift five thousand years in the making. Each is to be valued as the treasure it is, and I hoard them in my mind and heart as a miser does his gold.

This one was a reaffirmation of our past, a hope for our future and a benediction for our present.

The smile stayed on his face as I took him in my mouth.

Then he was sliding endlessly, endlessly into me, my body accepting him with ease, welcoming a traveler long feared lost safely home again.

When we came, we came together.

We rested, limbs entwined, for a long time after that. The sound of the ship's engines played counterpoint to the steady thud of my heart and the whirring thrum of his.

Spock stirred and raised his head from its place between my neck and shoulder. “Bond with me,” he said, and that, too, was what he had said that first time we became lovers. This time the answer had to be a different one. 

I rose and put on a robe from the closet, walked to the port opening, watched dopplered star streaks slip by. “No,'” l said, and wondered if I could actually bear to live the rest of my life without ever going home again.

I heard him get up and pad out to the office area. The clasp on the overnight bag opened and shut. I wondered if it would be that black silk robe I’d bought for his birthday. Only six months ago. Seemed like a lifetime. Neither of us was the same person now.

He returned and came up behind though he didn’t touch me. Even through two layers of cloth I felt his heat. “It could be as it was with us, Jim.”

“Until the next time it happens. Until the next time I cause it, or we run into some maniac like Khan, or you meld with something like V’ger and blow your mind to pieces, or maybe you'll just step out into a road somewhere and get hit by an aircar.” I turned. Yes, it was the black robe. His hair was disheveled, making him look young and very vulnerable, and all I wanted to do was take him back to bed and make love to him. “Until the next time you leave me behind.”

“It would not be like that.”

“Miracles don’t happen twice.”

“You act as if I were the only one in danger. You, too, are an officer on active duty. By nature, by culture, by upbringing...by any criteria you choose, you are far more impetuous than I.” The dark eyes sparked hot with anger. “Shall I tell you of the times I have stood over you in Sickbay waiting to see if you will live or die? The odds are far greater that you will predecease me. You would deny me the right to follow if you were to die first?”

I saw it then. I saw it all. “You never even considered it could be you. You were convinced I would die first. _That’s_ why you asked for the death bond—so you could follow me.”

“What would you have me say? Yes, I love you, and would not willingly part from you. In life or in death. In whatever is beyond." 

“Sure, as long as it’s you who gets to make the decision. You promised me, Spock. Dammit, you promised. How can I ever trust you again?” 

“You _can,_ Jim. You _must._ ”

“Don’t you understand? I can’t go through that again. I _won’t_ go through that again and not be with you.

Tears came to my eyes. Automatically I blinked them away, and they lodged in a hard knot in the center of my chest. Tried to turn when a hot hand on my face stopped me. One finger reached to brush at the corner of my eye. 

“Don’t look for tears. You won’t find them. No tears in the reactor room. None after. None now.” 

“I never asked that you refrain from exhibiting your emotions. You are not Vulcan, Jim.”

“No, but I was bonded to one for eight years. They would have offended you.”

“Not so.”

“Doesn’t matter.” I gave him a rueful smile. “I think I’ve lost the knack.”

“Trust me once more.”

“Give me one reason I should take that chance again. One reason it would be different this time.”

He turned away, but not before I saw the telltale swallow at his throat or his hands ball into fists or his head drop to his chest.

I put my hands on his shoulders, and turned him back. “Spock?”

“I am not the same man I was before. I have stepped over that line between life and death, and I do not have the courage to go there again without you.” He raised his head. There was a desperate desolation in the dark eyes. “Do not make me go alone, T’hy’la.”

And what could be the answer to that except to take him in my arms? “Come on, let's get you back to bed.”

“I am not fatigued, Jim.” 

“No, but if you’re going to perform a bonding meld, we need to lie down, don’t we?”

He pulled back to stare at my face. His eyes closed and the long throat moved in a convulsive swallow before they opened again. There was no smile on his face this time. One look into those depthless eyes told me we had moved beyond smiles to some other place where the gratitude he was feeling had no name or words to express it. His head jerked awkwardly up then down once. A nod.

Strong arms came about my waist and he lifted me, never breaking the eye contact between us. We moved clumsily, our knees knocking, the mounds of our genitals pressed together under our robes as he carried me to the bed. Once there he quickly stripped both our robes away. I took his mouth in a hard kiss that left us both breathless as we lay down.

He broke away, stared at the ceiling for a long moment before turning. “Are you certain?” he asked, and I knew what it had cost to give me that one last chance to back out.

In answer I picked up one of his long-boned elegant hands, palely luminous in the dim light and studied it. “I first fell in love with you over a chessboard. Did I ever tell you that? Your hands on the pieces.... So strong. So agile. Graceful and quick. Decisive and gentle.” Met his eyes with my own. “So like you.” I kissed the palm and smiled at the shiver that caused. Then I raised his hand to my face and placed it in the meld position. “Bond us, Spock,” I said and closed my eyes. “Make sure neither of us has to go alone.”

Our minds joined as effortlessly as our bodies.

_My eyes opened on a new vista. A low flat plain stretched out in all directions from where I stood. A slight swell of gentle hills to the west was the only respite from the monotony of level ground, the setting sun gilding them with a soft pink glow._

_A muted nicker caused me to turn, and it was then I discovered the reins to a handsome white charger were clasped in one hand and a lance in the other. I looked down at myself. A knight in armor and his steed. For some reason I almost laughed, but after a moment something clicked into place and settled and the urge went away. It felt right._

_I waited. For what I did not know. A gust of wind blew through my hair, lifted the horse’s mane, brought with it the scent of something familiar—cinnamon—and something else. Something that spoke of fire and rock, desert sand and heated blood. After a moment the scent began to fade, and I lifted my head to catch the last lingering traces. Then it was gone._

_I waited, but the light was rapidly fading, and the scent did not come again._

_I needed…something. Something that was once in this place and now was not. Something once possessed and now lost. Something cherished. Something holy. Something beyond any price. And it was not here._

_Why was it not here when I needed so desperately?_

_A quest then. I mounted the horse and set out toward the hills in search of what I needed._

_As I traveled the landscape began to change. Where once the ground looked the same, now it was subtly altered, and before long demarcations formed that divided the it into huge blocks—squares of rose and verdigris._

_A chess board. The antique two-dimensional kind. And I was a knight upon it._

_I passed between the remains of two destroyed castles, and soon the ground began to change again. There were signs of many riders, the earth churned, disrupted in places, as if this this ground had been fought over repeatedly. The scent of blood and the sight of dark blotches staining the earth made my mount quiver and try to shy away. I held him steady and we went on._

_And now as I passed through alternating squares I saw the fallen pieces themselves. Saw that they wore familiar faces. Here was a bishop with Rayna’s pale lovely face, there the broken body of Miramanee in the guise of a knight, a dead child with David’s eyes clutched in her arms instead of a weapon. I picked my way between them and went on. Next lay my queen, defeated and broken on the ground and where a haughty severe visage should be was only Edith’s smiling countenance and the empty staring gaze of her warm brown eyes. I faltered and almost stopped but did not. I wished I could have cried for her…for them all but I had forgotten how._

_Next came the pawns, the ground littered with their bodies. Tormolen and Green and Matthews and Rayburn. Gaetano, Latimer, Marple, Mallory and more. So many of them. I knew each life. Each death. They were clad in blue and gold and red and they were all so very young. With each one I passed, the tears I had forgotten how to weep coiled tighter and tighter in my chest, a weight that pressed against my heart and threatened my ability to breathe. I searched for what I needed on this barren field of death but it was not here, and I pushed on._

_I finally left the carnage behind, emerging onto a clear, empty No Man’s Land. A sense of urgency overtook me, a sense that time was slipping away, retreating like the tide from a shore and soon there would be nothing I could do that would call it back. It came with a roaring sound I felt more than heard, on a wave of heat that left me cold and shivering._

_I nudged in my heels. My mount responded to my signal flawlessly and broke into a gallop that began to eat up the ground at a dizzying speed while inside my body a voice screamed with the promise of pain to come. “Faster! Faster!”_

_Backlit against the setting sun the enemy appeared. Androgynous faces that were Orion and Klingon, Kzin and Romulan. Human ones as well. The expressions they wore were those of ignorance. Of xenophobia. Of distrust and suspicion. Some I had known. Some I had yet to meet. When they attacked I fought them as best I could. With knowledge as well as phasers. With trust as well as photon torpedoes. I didn't always succeed, but I tried, and there was a quite strength there—not my own—to help. I avoided those conflicts I could, I fought when I had to. I killed only when there was no other choice._

_Suddenly it was over. I whirled my mount in a circle but all my enemies had fallen away. The low roll of laughter brought me around. All my enemies but one._

_Khan._

_He stood there, hands on his hips and laughed at me. “I've hurt you and I want to go on hurting you...forever...forever...forever....” The word echoed over and over in the still air._

_The urgency was growing now. There was little time left, and I could spare none for this man. Behind him the ground sloped upward, its top hidden, but there where the sun's fading light lit the crest with rose was where I had to be. As I passed Khan, I looked back. Beyond his laughing face, the dark of night streaked rapidly in from the east._

_A night without stars._

_Suddenly I was running. Mount, armor, lance, Khan—all had disappeared. The hill was steep—steeper than it appeared. Arms, legs aching from the strain, and the voice screaming, “Faster! Faster!” Tripping. Falling. Scrambling for handholds, and never, never quickly enough and....and then finally I was there. A level space. A cage of glass. And within it, a naked man. He stood with feet slightly spread, hands clenched into fists, head thrust back. Eyes closed, and head raised to the heavens. Black hair, dark as a raven's wing adorned his head, dusted the sturdy chest, trailed down to ornament slack unaroused genitals which dangled between spread legs. Skin tinted the pale verdigris green of telpan marble glistened in the waning light. No throne of gold, gilded crown or ermine robe. But he didn't need them. Every austere line of face, every finely muscled line of body shouted his royalty. Chains of delicately wrought metal around each wrist shackled his hands together. A king...a captured king held prisoner far behind enemy lines._

_And he was dying._

_The knowledge was there in his eyes as they lowered to find mine. Knowledge, but no fear._

_It was all so terribly familiar. My heart froze in my chest as I realized we had been this way before._

_I searched for the portal that would allow him to leave or for me to join him. There was none. The cage was seamless. He waited until I had examined every inch, until I had come back to my starting place, until I had accepted there would be no reprieve. Only then did he approach the glass where I stood._

_With horror I saw radiation lesions blossom on the slender body, scatter across the sharply-planed face like seeds blown by the wind. The manacled hands he placed against the glass were long-boned and elegant and here, too, open wounds began to sprout. A garden of death. That they didn’t bleed made it worse somehow, for blood can hide wounds as well as reveal them, and we both understood that however often we found ourselves like this, hiding from each other was no longer possible. Once again touch was denied us._

_How many times would he have to die? How many times would I have to watch it happen?_

_No. Not this life. Not this time. Lacing my hands together, I smashed them into the glass over and over in anger, in futility, until I was exhausted from the effort. Until finally there was nothing left to do but place them flat against the glass to mirror his._

_Something tore inside me then, shattered walls that had held it so firmly contained and which could contain it no more, spewed up and up and forced itself from my eyes. Blood. My dearest blood. That was only right. If he could no longer bleed, I would do it for him. Water for his garden of wounds._

_I had remembered how to weep at last._

_Where the crimson drops landed on the glass, gray wisps of smoke rose, as my blood etched the surface like acid. Holes appeared in the barrier, spreading as we watched, growing larger and larger, and larger yet again, yet when I reached for him a barrier still stood in the way. He looked down at the chains surrounding his wrists, looked back at me, and for the first time, a panicked fear took root in his eyes. His throat rippled in a long swallow, and a look of supreme concentration knitted his brows together for a moment. When we looked down, the last fetters that bound him were gone. Finally we were permitted to touch. Desperately we grasped each other, holding on as if we would never let go. Holding on until all else fell away and we began to merge into each other to form a new being with only one mind and heart and soul to share between us. It didn’t last long. Couldn’t somehow, but still I clutched at him as he drew away. Too soon! But then in his black eyes, as if in a mirror, I saw my own reflection looking back. I knew that he had seen himself in my eyes as well because the fear was gone. Knew it because of the way his presence glittered like a diamond in my mind – whole and well and perfect._

_The container that housed it might be destroyed, but a diamond endures forever._

_Together we raised our eyes to the heavens to see the night laid out before us, a tapestry of black velvet. And strewn across it like diamonds, were the stars._

My eyes opened to see Spock’s face wavering through healing tears staring down at me. “I watched you die.” I could say it now and let the sorrow go.

Wordlessly we embraced. Long minutes passed before we could release each other. Finally he pulled away. “I was able to break our bond because I held something of myself back the first time in order to protect you. I beg forgiveness, Jim. I had not known it.”

“Not this time. This one is forever.” I didn’t need to make it a question.

“Yes. Forever. The chains are gone. Ever if I wished, I could not break this bond.”

“Good.” I ducked my head, but not before he noticed it.

“Tell me.”

I leaned in and took his mouth for a sweet kiss. “In the meld…. That’s my truth, isn’t it? You hurt and I bleed.”

He leaned in and kissed me back. “It is my truth as well, T’hy’la.”

“Nothing will change that. It will happen again, Spock. We could die tomorrow. In a hundred years. An hour from now.”

He nodded. “But whenever it happens, neither of us will have to go alone.”

Abruptly my eyes filled. I turned before he could see and rose from the bed. The stars called to me, as they always have, and I found myself back before the port opening.

Spock rose as well and came to stand behind me. Strong gentle hands turned my body, and as they did, I felt a hot tear escape my control and roll down my cheek. I dashed it away with my hand and turned away. “Sorry.” 

“Lights up a level.” He examined me closely. “Do you regret--?”

“No. No, of course not.” I grinned. “Happiness can bring tears as well as sorrow, love. There’s no reason I have to inflict my emotions on you, though.” Another tear started to fall. I moved to brush it away when his hand stopped me. Reached for it. Took it on his own finger instead. Smoothed it between his fingers and brought it to his mouth for a taste.

“Is it possible that after all this time together you still do not know? I have been remiss. I should have made it clear long before now.” He took a long deep breath. Released it in a sigh. “Your laughter, your tears, even your anger, Jim…I need them. I need you—all of you, emotions included. They are a part of what you are, and I love what you are. You have taught me so much.” Arms embraced me and drew me close. “You are my witness to what I have become because you have loved me.”

I held him tightly. Gave a quick kiss to the sweet lips. “Let’s go to bed,” I whispered into one tapered ear.

We turned to our bed when I caught a glimpse of the ruined chess set against the bulkhead. “Go on and get under the covers. I’ll be there in a minute.” When morning came, that silent reprimand wasn’t the fight sight I wanted to see.

“I will help.”

We crouched down and began to sort out the broken pieces. One by one the chessmen emerged from their wrappings whole and undamaged. 

“It appears only the wooden crate was broken, Jim.” He lifted out the board and hardware. They, too, were intact.

“I can’t believe it,” I said. “It looks as if there are some things that last forever after all. I am embarrassed about one thing, thought.” A black brow rose endearingly on cure, and I laughed. “I didn’t consider myself a white knight. You know, fighting evil, rescuing virgin maidens. Funny the tricks your subconscious plays on you.”

Spock busied himself with piling up broken pieces of crate that were already neatly piled. Green tinged the tips of his ears. “Spock?”

“I am afraid I contributed that to the meld, Jim. From stories read to me by my mother when I was a child.”

“ _You_ see me as some sort of medieval knight?”

The face he showed me was perfectly serious. “You _did_ come back to Genesis for me. You _did_ rescue me. It was a logical extrapolation.”

“Oh, it was, was it?” Leisurely I glanced up and then down his enticing naked body. “And are you the virgin maiden I get to keep as a reward?”

Both brows lifted at that. “I am neither, Jim.”

I glanced again at the twin-ridged cock and the plump balls under it. “Right. Not a maiden. I’ll grant you that. But the virgin part—”

“Jim, we have been bonded for years. I hardly think—”

“Genesis. Rebirth. New life. New body.” I nodded firmly. “Virgin.”

I stood up and held out my hand. It took a few moments, but he put his hand in mind and allowed me to draw him to his feet. “I thought…I thought I had lost you.” I placed my hands on his face, tilted his head and kissed him. “I love you, Spock. Let me make love to you.”

He swallowed once and nodded. Stern lips rose at the corners in a small but genuine smile that made my heart sing. I led him to our bed and made it happen.


End file.
